Here's the third and final part to our story. Hope it hasn't been too long of a read
One hour after the attack, with western leadership still reeling, China issued its statement along with a set of demands;
"...In obvious violation of the space disarmament act, the west has proceeded to develope a series of superguns whose ultimate purpose could only be to hold the rest of the planet hostage and enforce western will on all of us.
The attack on mars was simply a demonstration of eastern power, capability, and determination. We posses the ability to match western firepower, we sill not be slaves to thier whims.
In the interest of maintaining balance of power, and the avoidance of a new arms race we make the following demands;
- No new superlift guns may be constructed, by either side. To enforce this, we have a fleet of ships capable of detecting and destroying any offending installation.
- No payload may be launched outside of lunar orbit. Any attempt to do so will be considered an act of war and we will retaliate against the offending installation.
..."
Dumbfounded, western leaders finally realised what they truely had, and it was useless to them (the targeting data simply didn't exist for accurate bombardment). Additionally, although it was three times as powerful as the chinese guns, it couldn't be used to fire back at the chinese guns (thier locations weren't even known at this time).
Anticipating a possible raid against Tranquility base, American and European Community officials scrambled to find some possible defense. Although most countries possesed various pet projects, all of these were designed for small-scale and counter-insurgancy work. The had nothing that could stand up to large scale conflicts such as this. Fortunately, several contractors began working on designs almost as soon news of the attack reached earth (anticipating the west's need). Boeing's design for a heavy bomber (essentially a converted cargo shuttle) carrying a series of nuclear-tipped missiles. Although these were purchased at what was truely an excorbant cost (over 200 billion per unit) they were not only the most cost-effective way of dealing with the cruisers used by the chinese fleet, but could be built fast enough to be in place before any possible incursion into lunar space (it was at least a three-month trip from mars to earth space).
Issueing a warning to Chinese officials to steer clear of lunar space as protected by sovern claims laid on the moon by the United States in 1969. Ignoring such claims as unenforcable by western powers, China's fleet forced thier way into Lunar orbit on November 23rd, 2133 and met stiff ressistance by the American bomber fleet (including prototypes, over 20 craft had been completed by this time, including traineed crews). The battle raged for nearly 12 hours and in the end the chinese fleet was forced to retire, having lost nearly half of its ships and the rest were nearly crippled. Two more of these injured ships were lost on the trip back to Jupiter space putting chinese losses at 9 ships lost, 390 dead, and 120 wounded. The American bomber fleet fared little better, only nine of the origional 21 bombers remained and of those only four were operational.
With the end of the "Battle of Tranquility Sea", the political situation degenerated into a cold-war and arms race. China developed its Interceptors to counter the threat posed by western bombers, the west countered with space superiority craft to defend the bombers, as well as a carrier fleet to give their bomber fleet an offensive capability. Both sides continued to refine their ship designs in an endless race to gain an edge over one another.
By 2177, China began placing political stress on both Russia and India to join their international community (up to this point both nations had maintained a sort of nuetrality) to tip the balance of power in thier favor. Sensative to such developements (there was no way the west was going to scede half the world's population to thier adversary) the cold war began to turn hot with orbital conflicts rising and even a few incusions of ground troops on earth taking place. This brings us to the beginning of the game in March 2179 with the player being stationed on board the USS Ranger and the 17th strike group. Politics on earth have reached a boiling point and the spector of war looms very close to the horizon.
THERE! that's the story up to this point. Hope you enjoyed it *gasp* *gasp*, now if you'll excuse me, I need to go ice my wrist...
